§ 73. Literature.

I. The chief and almost only sources for this chapter are the acts of Synods, the lives of saints and missionaries, and the chronicles of monasteries. The Acta Sanctorum mix facts and legends in inextricable confusion. The most important are the biographies of the Irish, Scotch, and Anglo-Saxon missionaries, and the letters of Boniface. For the history, of France during the sixth and seventh centuries we have the Historia Francorum by Gregory of Tours, the Herodotus of France (d. 594), first printed in Paris, 1511, better by Ruinart, 1699; best by Giesebrecht (in German), Berlin 1851, 9th ed. 1873, 2 vols.; and Gregorii Historiae Epitomata by his continuator, Fredegar, a clergyman of Burgundy (d. about 660), ed. by Ruinart, Paris 1699, and by Abel (in German), Berlin 1849. For the age of Charlemagne we have the Capitularies of the emperor, and the historical works of Einhard or Eginard (d. 840). See Ouvres complètes d’ Eginard, réunies pour la première fois et traduites en français, par A. Teulet, Paris 1840–’43, 2 vols. For an estimate of these and other writers of our period comp. part of the first, and the second vol. of Ad. Ebert’s Allgem. Gesch. der Lit. des Mittelalters im Abendlande, Leipz. 1874 and 1880.

II. Hefele: Conciliengesch. vols. III. and IV. (from a.d. 560–1073), revised ed. 1877 and 1879.

Neander: Denkwördigkeiten aus der Geschichte des christl. Lebens. 3d ed. Hamburg, 1845, ’46, 2 vols.

Aug. Thierry: Recits des temps merovingiens. Paris 1855 (based on Gregory of Tours).

Loebell: Gregor von Tours und seine Zeit. Leipz. 1839, second ed. 1868.

Monod: Études critiques sur les sources de l’histoire mérovingienne. Paris 1872.

Lecky: History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne, fifth ed. Lond. 1882, 2 vols. (part of the second vol.).

Brace: Gesta Christi, N. York, third ed. 1883, p. 107 sqq.

Comp. Guizot (Protest., d. 1874): Histoire générale de la civilisation en Europe et en Prance depuis la chute de l’empire romain jusqu à la révolution française, Paris 1830; seventh ed. 1860, 5 vols. (one vol. on Europe in general).

Balmez, (a Spanish philosopher and apologist of the Roman church, d. 1848): El Protatantismo comparado con el Catolicismo en sus relaciones con la civilisacion europea. Barcelona, 1842–44, 4 vols. The same in French, German, and English translations. A Roman Catholic counterpart to Guizot.